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Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux)
SearchEnterpriseLinux.com is running an
interview with Gartner analyst George Weiss. On the BayStar
investment: "I can't say much more about it, other than that I think
they're playing a strategic game of banking on intellectual property as an
important revenue generator to drive up their stock price and then, if and
when that should happen, to get out of the market, essentially, or sell
themselves out to the highest bidder. My feeling was that the other part
of the business was pretty much getting destroyed in the process. So it
looks like an end game to me."
(Log in to post comments)
Best line: "So this is turning into kind of a casino game." Posted Oct 30, 2003 17:00 UTC (Thu) by freeio (guest, #9622) [Link] I am sure that the writer did not say this with any homor in mind. Indeed, this is high-stakes gambling on how far the US legal system can be bent by attempting to portray TSG as a "victim." Of course, TSG has made the very real strategic mistake of calling out the biggest, baddest dog, by taking on IBM. Someone at TSG goofed. Going after the big IP company with more excellent IP lawyers than the entire employee population of TSG was insane.It is rather like lightly wounding a Cape Buffalo and then trying to go after it in the tall grass. Now that they have its full attention, they want to fight it in its favorite environment, where they cannot even see? Really, rather than a real financial plan to win, this looks more like committing suicide by judge. They can keep delaying to push the court dates out, but sooner or later TSG will go down very hard.
Best line: "So this is turning into kind of a casino game." Posted Oct 30, 2003 17:42 UTC (Thu) by vblum (subscriber, #1151) [Link] Do not triumph just yet. So far, the whole game has worked remarkably well for SCO, and that is the saddest outcome of it all. At the beginning of this campaign, their stock price was nearly zero, they were running out of cash, and might not even be around anymore by today.At this point, their stock price is ridiculously high and rising, they have plenty of cash, and it looks like they're going to stay around for a while. Maybe not long-term, but the jury's still out on that. So, why do you think anyone goofed? They certainly improved their financial indicators on all fronts, and saved a dying company, for now. This is the aggressive and determined management that was lauded by Deutsche Bank. Who cares how an investment brings in money, if it does? Not that I am happy with that, I think it's a crying shame. But for now, it looks to me as though SCO was making good progress. And if, for some reason, they really win some compensation from IBM on a few counts (breach of contract, not copyright), and get some shelter from countersuits in the process, or even retrieve part of their legal costs ... well, they might not even go out of business through all this, eh?
Best line: "So this is turning into kind of a casino game." Posted Oct 30, 2003 22:14 UTC (Thu) by freeio (guest, #9622) [Link] Many are the things a company can do to look good to investors, which in fact have no long term hope. Since most investors have a very short time horizon, this approach can work at increasing the investor confidence that things will go their way, for at least a little while.Again and again I point to the actions of "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap at Sunbeam. The investors loved him, at least for a while. Some of them made good money off of his actions. He ruined the company, and he may yet see prison time for some of the things he did, but in the short term it drove the stock price up. I see this as a direct parallel to TSG. I still say TSG picked the wrong fight, with the wrong opponent. The probablilty of them losing big time is extremely good. That is not to say that the battle has already been won, but rather that there is no reason for dispair. The best IP legal team we know of is already on this case, and methodically closing in.
Best line: "So this is turning into kind of a casino game." Posted Oct 31, 2003 3:43 UTC (Fri) by fLameDogg (guest, #11305) [Link] "I still say TSG picked the wrong fight, with the wrong opponent. The probablilty of them losing big time is extremely good. That is not to say that the battle has already been won, but rather that there is no reason for dispair. The best IP legal team we know of is already on this case, and methodically closing in."I don't know. If SCO knew they were doomed, and just wanted to go out with a bang (grow a big bubble of stock "money"), then it was probably the right fight. Suing, say, SGI most likely wouldn't have brought the speculators running, but everyone knows IBM. And IBM has become such a prominent figurehead for commercial Linux[0] that ISTM they were the only logical target. Whatever's going on, I think the real shots are being called above SCO's head. I guess that's probably obvious. Whether it's Canopy, or even above Canopy--Angel Partners?--someone has orchestrated this to at least use a dying tech company to create a lot of revenue--if not to also accomplish something even larger. Shall we say synergistically leveraging their assets to achieve multiple objectives, or some similar suit-speak. [0] I don't say "GNU/Linux" here because IBM isn't a figurehead for GNU, at least not in public perception; people know IBM, and they're getting to know Linux (in part because IBM markets it that way). Linux and IBM are, AFAICT, becoming linked in general perception; but the average investor doesn't know about GNU--and perception is the name of this game.
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 30, 2003 17:56 UTC (Thu) by forlel (guest, #11028) [Link] The $50,000,000 BayStar investment will eventually be going to IBM and Redhat after SCO looses in court. It gives me the warm fuzzies to know that IBM and RedHad will get get paid for their trouble. Before the investment, it looked as if SCO would be bled dry before damages could even be assessed.
what makes you think Posted Oct 31, 2003 14:37 UTC (Fri) by pflugstad (subscriber, #224) [Link] There will be any of that money *left* once this is all over with? My guess is that SCO's going to burn through a big chunk of that in legal fees and everything else. Even if IBM/RedHat win big, there'll be nothing there to collect from. So, who wins: whoever cashed out before the stock bubble burst, which is going to be the VC firm and all the other smart investors who have stock.I keep thinking that this has *got* to be highly illegal in so many ways, and I'm wondering where the SEC and FBI is?
With enough eyes, All IP is shallow Posted Oct 30, 2003 19:22 UTC (Thu) by wa1hco (subscriber, #3628) [Link] "The only other way would have been that the Linux community, under Linus Torvalds, had some kind of a system that was able to filter out, or screen, or qualify contributions, not only for technical capabilities but for their legality, which I don't think they have."But, to paraphrase Linus... "With enough eyes, all IP is shallow". Which means that open source actually has excellent means to filter out contributions with questionable IP....especially after everyone becomes sensitized to the issue. The community has proved the the bazaar model works for bugs and architecture decsions, so why not for IP issues as well?
With enough eyes, All IP is shallow Posted Oct 30, 2003 20:25 UTC (Thu) by grumpendorfer (subscriber, #169) [Link] > the bazaar model works for bugs and architecture decsions,> so why not for IP issues as well? Because it is (in theory) possible to immediately test contributions for bugginess, cruftiness, or other lossage. But since patents can be enforced selectively without losing their protection (as opposed to, say, trademarks), a devious IP holder could permit infringing code to become deeply embedded, then submarine us later with claims for "damages".
With enough eyes, All IP is shallow Posted Oct 30, 2003 22:02 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] And let's not forget that in the SCO vs. IBM case it's IBM that is using software patents. No software is immune against submarine patents, free or non-free.
With enough eyes, All IP is shallow Posted Nov 3, 2003 22:21 UTC (Mon) by crouchet (guest, #1084) [Link] Also, remember we are talking about conflicts with code that is presumably closedsource. There are ways and there are ways that some OSS developers may have seen some of that code anyway but I doubt we can count on having seen ALL of it. JC
Gartner analyst doesn't grasp the "Open" in "Open Source" Posted Oct 30, 2003 19:24 UTC (Thu) by rjamestaylor (guest, #339) [Link]
What better system than to make available to all potentially-infringed source code right-holders the source code and bit-by-bit development process of all incoming code into the Kernel? Every time code is added the path of delivery is clear and the code is publicized. If a source code righs-holder wondered if Linux contained it's code that entity would not need a court order but would just need to grep the publically published code. If potentially infringing code is found, the source of that code can be traced through change logs and patch submissions. There is no development model with a better filter system than that. Does Microsoft have illicitly used code in its products? It has been proven to have some in various courts, but without "MIT Spectral Analysts" and a solid, timely court order, you'd never know. No wonder MSFT still won't indemnify its customers from its misappropriation of other's IP property (beyond the license cost of the software, which is not the penalty a rights-holder will extract on infringers).
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 30, 2003 20:43 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] "I think that this [money] is really kind of a gift from the venture capitalist who thinks that maybe there's a chance of a big payoff here and that [SCO] needs the money to sustain their campaign" C'mon Mr Weiss everybody knows that that money is not a gift but a uncovered financing from the Ma$ter, for SCO to continue its FUD war, and that BayStar is only the "midleman" that never had really wild dreams about profit from SCO campaigns... The obvious business, "was" that SCO was in a position capable of shaking a world wide community, that M$ or any other with millions($$$$) involved in Marketing & Propaganda could not had.
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 30, 2003 23:06 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] C'mon Mr Weiss everybody knows that that money is not a gift but a uncovered financing from the Ma$ter No, everybody does not know that, and I for one am getting a bit tired of your constant harping on the same conspiracy theory. It may or may not be Microsoft; it may or may not be the Doctor's old Gallifreyan adversary (I can't be sure quite which the `Ma$ter' is supposed to be). Surely the former would like to see Linux hurt, but there's not much evidence that the latest tranche of cash, at least, came from MS (even if it were a gift, which it isn't; it's an investment with rather unpleasant terms, for SCO). It came from RBC, mostly; and RBC, oops, shares a director with IBM. Feel like saying that IBM are funding this now? --- thought not.
There's a theory for that, too. Posted Oct 30, 2003 23:26 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] It would be slightly unpleasant for IBM if SCO goes bankrupt just when they're about to be crushed in court. From then on the FUD machines can claim that SCO would have won except that big mean IBM bankrupted it with endless delays in the court case. So IBM arranged some financing to make sure that doesn't happen. I don't believe this myself because I doubt a director of RBC would get involved with (or even be aware of) a mere $50M investment, but there's a theory for everything :)
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 31, 2003 0:25 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] Well, belives are belives...As to my point "i belive" that there are at least 60 million reasons to continue harping that the idea is not a theory, at least, but an axiom with a high degree of certainty... Guess what !?, "at least", everything falls into a logic that prevents one from trying to chace shadows... because one thing i'll guarantee wihtout a shred of a doubt, that if it always was M$ behind it, you will never know it. And better, the foward caming NGCSB/Paladium indicates they, Microsoft, not only are "WISHING" to hurt Linux, but are doing positive actions to kill, from wide world acceptance, everything but Microsoft software. You are right, i'll try to restrain myself. Its not nice to state something that one has not a "material" prove to show, but give me a breack please;... we are not at the age of continuing to belive in the nice and harmless "Santa Claus" anymore,..., if someone points you a gun that dosent mean that that person is trying to kill you, but if a very well known criminal points you that gun, i belive even you wont hesitate one second in doubt! And IBM(not the only one) is really financing Linux, not anyone's comments, but... at least they stated it at the four winds... and i doubt that there is anyone that sees evil in that! Chears
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 31, 2003 16:45 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] Where is a good example of what the Ma$ter might be... its not only M$, and its not exclusively about software neither...http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51274,00.html
Well thought out. Posted Oct 31, 2003 3:25 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link] I don't know. They had a plan alright, but well thought out? Did they think that the linuxcommunity was stupid? Is that why they showed a slide with code that had at least questionable parenthood? That slide and the analysis essentially derailed their whole strategy. This whole mess sounds like the result of a meeting where, as Linus said, some recreational chemical messed with the judgement of the participants. We own Unix. All of it. IBM is screwing with us again. Let's sue! Derek
Gartner analyst scrutinizes SCO-Linux flap (SearchEnterpriseLinux) Posted Oct 31, 2003 22:06 UTC (Fri) by suckmebitch (guest, #16361) [Link] SCO owns Unix and Linux! Yeah!Go SCO!
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